dgmagic - UK magic blog by magician Dan Gifford

I just thought I’d share this magic video of Cardini. I’ve seen a few short clips on YouTube and the like, but this is a long clip of almost his entire manipulation act. In fact it may well be the only footage of Cardini as TV magic shows only started towards the end of his career.

Magicians are as guilty as any of harking back to the ‘good old times’ and viewing the past with rose-tinted specs, but with Cardini, it is entirely justified.

Cardini was not only technically gifted (he was able to perform card manipulations while wearing gloves) but his act was also theatrical - he didn’t just stand there and do clever stuff, which is basically juggling. Not that there’s anything wrong with juggling, it just isn’t magic. He plays the part of a slightly tipsy gentleman, who appears as confused and surprised about the cigarettes appearing at his fingertips as the audience.

Anyway, have a look and enjoy a true master at work.

There’s a bit more about Cardini on Wikipedia.

Every now and then, I am reminded why being a magician is such a great job.

Just like any job, it can have it’s ups and downs. The traveling can be arduous, things go wrong and even performing can lose it’s buzz after a gig every night for a week.

A wedding at the weekend reminded me why I do it. I was performing close-up magic, walking about performing in the hands magic during the photographs and then table magic during the meal.

The wedding breakfast began and I timed it so I could perform for the top table after the main course was finished.

From the start of my set, everything went perfectly. There were no interruptions to spoil the flow, nothing went wrong, the table reacted brilliantly in all the right places and, most unbelievably, laughed at all my jokes.

It is rare when performing close-up magic in a real world situation that this happens. Sometimes the magic doesn’t work as smoothly as it should (although usually the audience is not aware of it), or the wait staff need to get to the table, or something happens in the room that distracts the audience, but not during this 10 minutes.

The climax of my routine was the ‘Congratulations Card’, an effect where the Bride and Groom choose a card between them, simply naming any card in the deck.

When they turned it over to reveal it was the only red backed card in the deck and the only one with a sticker on it that said ‘Congratulations on your Wedding’, the whole table gave the best reaction I think you can receive as a magician - the disbelieving gasp and sharp intake of breath. This turned into laughs and applause and at that moment, I actually felt a shiver run down my spine.

It’s my job to give people moments like that, hopefully making their day even more special, but it’s also fantastic that I get to share it with them.

At the weekend, I was booked to perform close-up magic at a wedding held in a rather nice country house hotel near Loughborough.

As normal, I went to introduce myself to the hotel wedding coordinator and find out what the plan for the afternoon was. I got as far as “Hi, I’m Dan the magician…” before I was told in no uncertain terms that I was not to perform the “trick where a card ends up on the ceiling…if you do you’ll be charged to clear it up…”

It turned out that a couple of magicians who had been there previously had performed this effect and it then cost the hotel £100 each time to remove the cards and repair the ceiling!

It sounds as though they had performed it using some kind of glue rather than the method using a drawing pin. When I could get a word in I explained that none of the card magic I was performing involved ceilings, glue or damage.
It’s strange how people tend to assume all magicians perform the same tricks. Maybe it’s because a lot do?

The UK Entertainer Directory is a new site I have set up (with some technical help!) for entertainers and performers to advertise their services. There is a big demand for entertainment at weddings, parties and corporate events, and these days many people go direct to the performer via a website rather than through agents.

Being a magician, I use sites like this to advertise myself but I often find they are complicated, won’t let you link to your website or are too expensive and require subscriptions. Other, more general web directories often don’t have relevant categories or they also list low quality sites that you don’t want to be associated with.

So I thought I’d create my own web directory which only has categories relevant to entertainment, is simple to use and cheap. Best of all, I have control over the sites that are admitted, so I can make sure they are good quality sites.

Entertainers and performers provide a link to their site, a short description of the entertainment service they offer and optional contact information. They can choose to place their listing in a variety of categories, including one for magicians (with sub categories for close-up, cabaret and stage magicians, and illusionists), a massive one for musicians (big because of the number of different styles of music and bands), and ones for more unusual entertainers like drag acts, after dinner speakers and living statues.

From the point of view of people looking to book an entertainer, the site is pretty easy to use. All the categories are listed on the front page, so users can click on them to browse whatever type of performer they are after. There is also a search function for finding specific listings and an option to find entertainers in a particular region.

The site is gradually filling up with listings and gradually getting more and more visitors. I’m hoping it will prove to be a useful resource for entertainers and bookers alike.

A couple of weeks ago, I had great pleasure in seeing the lecture of Jim Pace at the Leicester Magic Circle.

Jim is an experienced close-up magician from the US who was touring the UK with his lecture, leading up to the Blackpool convention last weekend.

He demonstrated a number of great effects obviously born from experience in real world situations. In particular, there was a great effect where he borrows a napkin from a table and produces a drink from beneath it. Hmmm, so what? Well the drink belongs to one of the people at the table!

As a bonus, we were also introduced to Dennis Friebe, a young magician who is helping Jim out on his lecture tour. Dennis showed us some of his ideas, which were very well thought out and effective.

You can visit Jim Pace’s website at www.jimpacemagic.com (he sells some great items) and Dennis Friebe’s site at: www.dennisfriebe.com.